Ever wonder when, oh, when your home is going to be worth what it was back in the heady days of the housing bubble?

Try 2024.

Gulp.

Back in March, Fiserv, which generates data for the widely watched Case-Shiller Housing Index, created a report to estimate long it would take 384 metro areas throughout the country to regain their peak home prices.

Some markets like Cheyenne, Wyo., Bowling Green, Ky., and Billings, Mont. were projected to get back to their peaks some time next year. Believe it or not, Anchorage, Alaska was slated to return to its peak later this year. Same with Fairbanks, another Alaskan metro market. Go figure.

Before you curse your bad luck for living here and not, ahem, Cheyenne, consider the Miami and Orlando markets. Fiserv expects them to regain the peak price sometime beyond 2039. Yes, you read that right. Some time after 2039.

In California, there were several markets bleaker than ours. Stockon and Sacramento weren't expected to hit their previous highs until beyond the year 2039 either. For the Los Angeles metro area, its 2026. Still, Orange County is supposed to rebound a bit quicker, hitting its bubble numbers sometime in 2022. San Francisco is supposed to get there in the year 2017.

Now, of course, there are some caveats with all of this.

David Stiff, chief economist for Fiserv, cautioned that these numbers are a bit pessimistic because they were compiled back in March before the federal home buyer tax credits boosted home sales and prices. In the March report, for instance, San Diego reached the peak in the second quarter of 2024. The current report, which is not yet complete, it could be as early as the first quarter 2024.

Also, these numbers cover the entire market. A particular home or neighborhood could regain its peak much sooner.

Then there's the fact that long-range predictions are tricky business. Or as Stiff puts it: "I should point out the long-run forecasts have a very high degree of uncertainty, so pinning the return to peak to a specific quarter will almost certainly be wrong. I did that in the analysis so that it would be possible to make distinctions across all of the metro areas."

Now here's the pitch. Are you one of those folks with a home firmly lodged underwater. I'm currently working on a story about that very subject and would love to talk to you about your situation. You can reach me by e-mail at jennifer.davies@uniontrib.com or by phone at (619) 293-1373.